Colonel Crawford stuns Carey

NORTH ROBINSON -- "Little Willy, Willy won't go home." That's the message The Sweet sang in 1972 with the popular song, "Little Willy."

Forty-four years later, Willy still wouldn't go home as Colonel Crawford's Will Kirkpatrick refused to let his team down Friday night, rushing for 179 yards and two scores to lead the Eagles to a 19-7 victory over Carey.

"We really focused," Kirkpatrick said of his team. "We prepared, and we made sure we took care of the ball every single play, and we played our hardest every single play."

Colonel Crawford (8-2, 6-2) racked up 337 yards of total offense, 258 on the ground.

Eagles coach Ryan Teglovic said it wasn't about just running the ball.

"(They were) moving piles and making cuts and squaring up their shoulders and getting the extra yards," Teglovic said. "I just can't say enough about our guys and their effort tonight."

The Eagles racked up 217 yards of offense and 10 first downs in the first half and held Carey to just 8 yards on 10 plays.

Eli Reffey opened the scoring, punching the ball in from the 1 in the second quarter to put Colonel Crawford up 6-0.

"Overall, I think we feel like we played hard," Teglovic said. "I feel like guys got off the football on the offensive and defensive lines — because our offense kept them off a field a lot in the first half, too, which helped us quite a bit."

On the ensuing kickoff, Satchel Strahm set Carey up with an opportunity to score with a 73-yard kick return to Colonel Crawford's 9, but the Eagles defense showed up big, forcing the Blue Devils to lose yardage to keep them off the scoreboard.

Carey (8-2, 6-2) opened the <FZ,1,0,52>third quarter with a bang as Zach Boes returned the second-half kickoff 72 yards to pay dirt. After the PAT, the Blue Devils went ahead 7-6.

After a punt, Carey could've taken control, but Dylan Noon didn't put enough on a pass, and Kam Landin came away with an interception for the Eagles.

Kirkpatrick connected with Dylan Gulley for a 39-yard strike, and two plays later, Kirkpatrick ran one in from 6 yards.

The Blue Devils marched 65 yards on the ensuing drive, setting up fourth-and-goal at the 2.

Carey handed the ball off to Jonathon Racheter, who burst through into the end zone; however, the Blue Devils were called for an illegal block in the back and pushed back to the 12.

Teglovic had a simple message for his team during that drive.

"'Just be patient,' that's what we told the guys — 'you're always just one play away,'" Teglovic said. "'They're a good football team. They're going to get drives, but if you start panicking and going away from what you do that's when the roof caves in."

On the next play, Brayden Wentling, who came in for Noon in the fourth quarter, tossed a ball to the back of the end zone, but it went out of bounds for the Eagles' second goal-line stand.

"I don't think we were mentally ready to start the game," Worst said. "We have a couple of injuries that caught up with us the last two or four weeks, and a few too many boo-boos and all kinds of good stuff.

"We kind of worked our way through some of it, but we couldn't get past all of it."

Kirkpatrick scored on a 31-yard run on the ensuing drive to put the Eagles up 19-7. Colonel Crawford made one more defensive stop before going into victory formation with five seconds left.

With the win, the Eagles keep their playoff hopes alive, though early indications don't look good. Official pairings won't be released until Sunday.

"There's about three big games out there for us to have a chance," Teglovic said. "I hope for our guys' sake that they're in because I think we're a playoff-caliber football team. But, if we're not, they left it all on the field tonight, so we're going to be proud of them either way."